The Henson Journals

[43]

Thursday, November 15th, 1917.

1200th day

I continued to work at the Article, and wrote a certain amount, but the result of my labours is curiously disappointing. Hurried work can never be satisfactory. I attended Evensong, & afterwards left my card on the Judge at the Castle. While in the Cathedral the notion came to me that the true answer to the challenge, why should the Established Church of England not enjoy the same measure of autonomy as that enjoyed by the Established Church of Scotland? lay in the fact that the one being episcopal can only be autonomous as part of a larger system than that of the Nation, whereas the other being presbyterian can possess complete autonomy within the national limits. Hence to admit the Episcopalian claim is all one with bringing back the internationalism which it was the first object of the Reformers to abolish.

I received a long letter from Philip le Mesurier which rather distressed me. The youth would seem to be contemplating surrender to the Scarlet Woman. I so far agree with him that, if he is to accept the "Catholick" version of Christianity, he had better do so as a Papist, & not immerse himself in the moral confusions of Anglo–Romanism. But it is rather a disappointing conclusion to his protest against the mummeries of S. Chad's. He is, I suspect, temperamentally disposed towards Papistry. I don't think it matters very much what his ecclesiastical description shall be, but, if he professes himself a Papist, he cuts his connection with his Protestant friends, & goes outside the main stream of English life. That is the real disadvantage of becoming a Papist: it must needs imply also a banishment from England, in the spirit if not also in the flesh!

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